थे Exile कुक Book

Dear Friends and Family

As the years have gone by here in South Africa, I have often made dishes that remind me of our friends and family, following in my parent’s footsteps, as they collected recipes from home before they went into exile in Denmark. We all still use that little faded and stained handwritten brown book, my mother began before 1978…which continued to be filled with recipes from the people we met over the years in Denmark and Tanzania. When I think back upon our childhood in Denmark, I remember Keld’s soups, our Chilean friends homemade mayo, Maria’s Mediterranean spread, Linda’s Frikadeller, Aunty Joyce’s Eable kage, just to mention a few. I guess cooking these dishes now, are a way to stay connected and to remember you by…also it has become a way to bring the past and my childhood into the present, through recreating the taste and smells we remember from the smells met in your kitchen and in ours, marking everyday rituals, a shared meal, a special event, most of all the smells, taste and textures that has come to define who we are. Our kitchen, food and eating culture is saturated by the relationships we forged with people and even to the extent of our (my families and my own) political solidarity. In many ways our menu can be read as a map of belonging, love, friendship and solidarity with people and places. To celebrate these relationships and to reflect the poetics of politics and love through food, I would like you to participate in a joint project to submit any food recipe, a meal, an anecdote you have shared with us or that have come to influence your life, memory or thought in anyway. I imagine that the end product will be presented in the form of a book that is a combination of how we remember you and you remember us…reciprocated in recipes.

Love
Simmi

Please write to me about your experience to sdullay@gmail.com
I accept anything from a few lines to a paragraph or even a short story. I will try and conduct interviews with those of you who for some reason cannot send me written submissions through skype when I get this installed. But I would very much like written submission, in Danish or English.
I am not working with any budget, but will try apply for one. If anyone knows how these things work or who to apply to, or have any suggestions, please let me know.